Mikoyan MiG-35 in Full Details: Specifications - Performances - Weapons - Sensors

a
Aviation defence equipment technology - MiG-35
 
 
Mikoyan MiG-35 in Full Details: Specifications - Performances - Weapons - Sensors
 
The advanced Mikoyan MiG-35 (NATO reporting name: Fulcrum-F) multirole fighter has started its flight trials, according to United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) President Yuri Slyusar. "The flight tests of the MiG-35 advanced fighter have begun," he told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a session of the Military Industrial Commission (MIC).
     
MiG 35 multirole Fighter Russia Russian Air Force 1The MiG-35 multirole fighter started its flight trials today
(UAC photo)
     
Slyusar said the aircraft was to be unveiled to potential foreign customers.

"Hopefully, it [the aircraft] will sell on foreign markets well. There has been keen interest in the aircraft already," the UAC president said.

"Hopefully, the orders we will be awarded by the Defense Ministry and foreign buyers will keep the manufacturer busy,"
he added. "The plane has been covered by the draft state armament acquisition program and slated for production from 2019."

Slyusar noted that all of the fighter’s systems had been developed and made in Russia.

The MiG-35 and its twin-seat version, the MiG-35D, are designed for dealing with aerial and static and moving surface threats in any climate and weather. Both aircraft share the design, avionics suite and weapons suite. The pilots of the MiG-35 multirole fighter family can use the two-seater as combat trainer.

The MiG-35 and MiG-35D’s feature setting them apart from the rest of the MiG-29 family is the fifth-generation information and targeting systems integrated with their avionics suite, Russian- and foreign-made weapon employment capability and enhanced combat stability achieved owing to sophisticated electronic warfare (EW) gear.
     
MiG 35 multirole Fighter Russia Russian Air Force 2The MiG-35 multirole fighter at the international launch event
(UAC photo)
     
The MiG-35/35’s design is grounded in the solutions implemented in the MiG-29K/KUB carrierborne multirole and MiG-29M/M2 air superiority fighters. They include an increased payload on nine hardpoints, an increased fuel load, the mid-air refueling system and buddy-buddy refueling capability. The advanced fighter’s airframe and key systems have corrosion-resistant protection meeting the standards applied to carrierborne aircraft, which contributes much to the type’s operation in adverse climes. The MiG-35 also features a reduced radar signature and has the three-channel digital integrated quadruple-redundant fly-by-wire control system.

Special attention was paid to enhancing the MiG-35’s operating characteristics, in particular, the airframe, engine and avionics reliability and airframe service life extension. According to MiG Corp. (a subsidiary of UAC), the MiG-35’s flying hour costs almost 2.5 times less than that of the MiG-29.

A set of technical and technological self-contained basing solutions, including the in-built oxygen generating unit, have been worked out for the MiG-35 and MiG-35D.

The normal takeoff weight of the MiG-35 stands at 19,200 kg and MiG-35D 19,000 kg, with the MTOW of both versions being 24,500 kg. Their maximum speed equals 2,100 km/h at high altitude and 1,400 km/h above the ground and their service ceiling accounts for 16,000 m. The combat radius of the MiG-35 single-seater carrying air-to-air missiles and three drop tanks is 1,000-1,400 km depending in its altitude and weapons fit. When loaded with air-to-surface munitions and three drop tanks, the fighter has a combat radius of 800-1,100 km. The MiG-35D two-seater carrying air-to-air missiles and three external tanks operates at a range of 900-1,300 km away from its base (750-1,050 km, if outfitted with air-to-surface weapons and three external tanks). The maximum operating g-load of both fighters is 9 g.

According to MiG Corp., the MiG-35 and MiG-35D’s avionics suite includes the OLS-KE podded look-down electro-optical (EO) target acquisition system spotting ground threats either independently or using the target designation fed by the targeting/navigation system. The OLK-KE handles target lock-on, autotracking, ranging and illumination as well. The avionics also includes the MSP-418KE compact active jammer pod.

According to MiG Corp., the MSP-418KE from TsNIRTI is designed for individual protection of the MiG-35/35D against current and future surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and aerial threats by means of active electronic countermeasures (ECM). The MSP-418KE can easily be integrated with the rest of the Fulcrum family. The MSP-418KE embodies the Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) technology and weighs 150 kg. It can be carried on any of the nine hardpoints of the MiG-35 family’s fighters.
     
MiG 35 multirole Fighter Russia Russian Air Force 6The MiG-35 multirole fighter will be fitted with Phazotron-NIIR Zhuk-AE AESA radar as an option
(UAC photo)
     
The MiG-35 and MiG-35D are furnished with the Phazotron-NIIR Zhuk-ME or Zhuk-AE multifunction radar operating under any weather conditions, in the look-up/look-down and head-on/pursuit modes and in natural clutter and ECM. The Zhuk-ME multimode slot-array radar automatically tracks 10 targets and ‘paints’ the four most dangerous of them for attack. The radar spots an airborne target with the 5-sq.m radar cross-section (RCS) at a distance of 120 km. The Zhuk-ME aligns the fighter’s navigation aids with the use of ground reference points and supports nap-of-the-earth flying. The Zhuk-AE radar boasts active electronically scanned array (AESA). It has the 30-aircraft multiple-target tracking capability. The radar prioritizes the threats and designates six of them simultaneous for the fighter’s missiles to engage. The Zhuk-AE detects hovering helicopters, jammers, moving and static surface targets, maps the ground and supports flying in terrain-hugging mode.

The Radio-Electronic Technologies Corporation (KRET, a subsidiary of Rostec) unveiled its Zhuk-AME AESA radar at Airshow China 2016 in Zhuhai. The cutting-edge multifunction AESA radar is designed to equip the MiG family’s multirole fighters, including the latest MiG-35.

The Zhuk-AME possesses the beyond-visual-range (BVR) engagement capability, tracks 30 targets at a time and illuminates six of them simultaneously (four, if they are ground targets), Yuri Guskov, director general of KRET’s subsidiary Phazotron-NIIR, told TASS at the air show in Zhuhai.

According to Guskov, the Zhuk-AME is effective in all weather and in ECM-heavy environment. It can simultaneously operate in look-up and look-down modes, identify and classify multiple and single targets, attacks several of them at once with precision-guided weapons, share the information about the tactical situation with other aircraft and jam enemy radars.
     
MiG 35 multirole Fighter Russia Russian Air Force 3The MiG-35 multirole fighter started its flight trials today
(UAC photo)
     
The Zhuk-AME is made of sophisticated electronic componentry. Its transmit-receive (T-R) modules are made of light high-temperature ceramics with the use of the 3D technology. This allows a reduction in the thickness of the AESA itself to about 10 cm together with the power supply sources and control units. The radar consists of three units - the AESA, synthesizer and computer system.

The Zhuk-AME is far more advanced than the current radars are now.

"The radar’s performance has been boosted by about 50% as a result of consolidating all technological strengths in the AESA. The overall weight of the advanced radar is around 100 kg. While the MiG-29 can attack targets out to 180 km, the latest Zhuk extends the engagement range to 260 km,"
Phazotron-NIIR’s general designer emphasized.

Phazotron-NIIR’s latest development is far more high-tech than the preceding version, while the solutions it embodies allow resolving such problems as broadband operation and conformity further down the road. The upgraded Zhuk radar has been given the green light for export.

The MiG-35 and MiG-35D advanced fighters are fitted with the targeting/navigation system and OLS-UEM forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor from Precision Instrument Systems JSC, ensuring lookdown target attack against the backdrop of the ground, sea or clouds. The OLS-UEM comprises several units, including the optical/mechanical, data processing, processor and driver control units. The FLIR acquires aerial and surface targets in the medium infrared and optical regions of the spectrum and paints them for missile attack. It is fit for equipping all of the aircraft in the MiG Corporation’s latest commonized fighter family - the MiG-29M/M2, MiG-29K/KUB and MiG-35/35D.

The MiG-35 and MiG-35D are afforded the NSTsI-KOS helmet-mounted target designator/display and VHF/UHF/HF communication, datalink and encoding gear. The multirole fighters of the type carry the L-150M-02 electronic intelligence (ELINT) system from TsKBA (Central Design Bureau of Automatic Devices). The ELINT system alerts the crew to the fighter being illuminated by hostile fighter radars or SAM system radars. The MiG-35 and MiG-35D also have the missile attack warning system in the fuselage nose section, aft-cockpit bay and air intake, antiradiation missile control and designation system, chaff dispensers and KARAT-B-29K automated technical diagnostics/flight data recorder system from Aviaavtomatika. The latter consists of the BSOI-29K-01 data gathering and processing unit, ZBN-29K-01 ruggedized flight data recorder and EBN-1KD Series 1 parametric flight data recorder.
     
MiG 35 multirole Fighter Russia Russian Air Force 4The MiG-35 multirole fighter
(UAC photo)
     
The MiG-35 and MiG-35D also carry the SVR-2M1K video monitoring/recording system from ELSI. The system comprises the SVS-29 television camera, ICU-29 interface converter module, VD-29 video controller/multiplexer, DR-29 flight recorder and RMM-12 portable storage device. On the customer’s request, the plane can be fitted with extra foreign-made airborne equipment.

The MiG-35 multirole fighter will carry the BINS-SP2 advanced navigation system - an adapted version of KRET’s navigation system equipping ship-based aircraft, KRET First Deputy Director General Igor Nasenkov said. According to him, KRET has released the LINS-100RS system’s design documentation, with the system equipping the MiG-29K/KUB carrierborne fighters. The MiG-35 will have an adapted version designated as BINS-SP2. The navigation system is noiseless and ruggedized and needs no maintenance. Its adaptation to the MiG-35 was to be completed in summer 2016.

The weapons suite of the MiG-35/35 includes the R-77 (NATO reporting name: AA-12 Adder) medium-range and R-73 (AA-11 Archer) dogfight missiles. The multirole fighters can strike surface threats with the Kh-31P, Kh-31PK (AS-17 Krypton), Kh-35E, Kh-35UE (AS-20 Kayak) and Kh-38MLE air-to-surface missiles, KAB-500Kr (OD) smart bombs and a broad spectrum of dumb munitions. The aircraft are outfitted with the 30-mm GSh-30-1 automatic gun. The payload on the nine external weapons stations weighs 6,500 kg.

The single-seater and two-seater can carry two drop tanks under wing and one under the fuselage and are furnished with the in-flight refueling system and PAZ-MK buddy pod.

The sophisticated Russian fighters are powered by a pair of Chernyshev-produced RD-33MK engines with a test bench thrust of 9,000 kgf each. The engine features modular design, enhanced reliability and thrust, a smokeless combustor, FADEC control system and extended service life.

The MiG-35/35D’s engines can be equipped with the 360-deg. swiveling nozzle on the customer’s request. The thrust vector control (TVC) afforded by the swiveling nozzle gives the fighter an edge in dogfights. The power plant, comprising two RD-33MK TVC engines, was tested on the MiG-29M OVT (side number 156) prototype aircraft.

Parachute Research Institute Director General Dmitry Tretyakov told TASS that the institute was developing braking systems for multirole fighters of several types, including the MiG-35.

"We are running several development works for aircraft applications - the braking systems to fit the MiG-31 [Foxhound], Mi-35 and [Sukhoi] T-50. Some of the systems have been issued letter ‘O’ [after their design documentation had been modified in the wake of the initial tests of the prototypes]," Tretyakov said in December 2016.
     
MiG 35 multirole Fighter Russia Russian Air Force 5The MiG-35 multirole fighter started its flight trials today
(UAC photo)
     
MPO Rumyantsev, a subsidiary of Tekhnodinamika, started the delivery of emergency pumps for MiG Corp.’s multirole fighters in October 2016. The NS-58 emergency pump was productionized under the import substitution program. The NS-58 is a hydraulic transformer designed to supply the operating medium under pressure to the aircraft’s hydraulic powered control system in an emergency. By pumping the operating fluid into the hydraulic system, it enables the aircraft to retain its controllability when its main pumps fail. The NS-58 equips the MiG-29SMT, MiG-29K/KUB and MiG-35/35D. Previously, it was made in Ukraine.

UAC General Designer Sergei Korotkov, dual-hatted as vice-president for innovation, believes the MiG-35 multirole fighter features a high degree of exportability.

"We are developing new aircraft that will be far superior to the current ones. Soon, we shall unveil the advanced aircraft, e.g. the MiG-35, which are very relevant worldwide and in possession of huge capabilities,"
Korotkov said during the presidential awards ceremony in the Kremlin in September 2016.

Russian Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin ordered the lessons learnt from the Syrian air operation be considered when the MiG-35 multirole fighter enters production.

"An experience has been gained from using combat aircraft in the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Defense Ministry has recently held a meeting [to discuss it], with the leaders of the Military Industrial Commission attending. Therefore, please, submit your proposals for applying the Sukhoi fighter family’s Syrian operational experience to the MiG-35 after your complete the MiG-35’s development. Your proposals are needed so that we do not have to improve the advanced aircraft during its tests and operation, taking into account everything now instead,"
he said at the aviation development meeting in October 2016.

Rogozin explained that he meant various situations from combat search and rescue to more complex things, e.g. visibility, radars and other threats than may crop up on mission. The vice-premier also called for looking into weapons under development for adding to the MiG-35’s weapons suite.

He suggested consultations with the air crews, who are veterans of the Syrian campaign, and Russian Air Force (RusAF) commanders "to make the aircraft superior to the US and other analogs" and able to handle contingencies in fluid, complicated battlespace.

The MiG Corporation has been awaiting the RusAF to order the MiG-35 for years. Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said the military was due to receive 30 aircraft before 2020. Later, Russian Aerospace Force Commander-in-Chief Victor Bondarev said the fighter’s fielding would commence in 2018.
     
© Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.